There is an operation microscope that is used in, for example, surgical operations, and can present a stereoscopic picture for an observed subject (see PTL 1, for example). For obtaining the stereoscopic picture, it is necessary to individually obtain a left-eye picture corresponding to a picture of the subject viewed by the left eye and a right-eye picture corresponding to a picture viewed by the right eye. The left-eye picture is presented to the left eye of an observer, and the right-eye picture is presented to the right eye. Thereby, the stereoscopic vision is actualized.
PTL 1 discloses a technology that, when a plurality of observers, for example, an operator such as an operating surgeon and his assistants, observe a subject through monitors from different angle directions respectively, generates pictures corresponding to the angle directions of the positions of the respective observers. The “angle direction” mentioned here means a radial angle direction centering on the subject, which is defined as 0 deg (degree) to 360 deg.
Concretely, the technology described in PTL 1 allows the respective observers to perform the observation from arbitrary angle directions, by a plurality of stereoscopic monitors 48 attached so as to be rotatable around a mirror body 12 in which an optical system such as an objective lens 32 is incorporated. The information about the rotation position (angle) of the stereoscopic monitor 48 is input as the information about the angle direction of the position of the observer, and the stereoscopic monitor 48 presents a picture corresponding to the angle direction, that is, a stereoscopic picture by a picture observed from the viewpoint of the left eye of the observer and a picture observed from the viewpoint of the right eye when the observer views the subject from the angle direction.
At this time, for supporting the observation from the plurality of angle directions, the technology described in PTL 1 makes it possible to individually pick up the respective images when the subject is viewed from a plurality of areas (viewpoints) by the division in the direction around the optical axis (see FIG. 6 and others in PTL 1). Then, from those pictures picked up on a viewpoint basis, two pictures corresponding to the angle direction of the position of the observer, that is, a picture observed from the viewpoint of the left eye of the observer who is at the position in the angle direction and a picture observed from the viewpoint of the right eye are selected. Then, they are displayed on the stereoscopic monitor 48 as a left-eye picture and a right-eye picture, and thereby the stereoscopic picture is presented.